Joel is a doorkeeper
for a rusty warehouse
and has a wife
a very angry spouse
and a son
one day his hip was out
two bodies going
on different directions
his blue uniform T shirt
floating in the powdered air  
barely walking up and down

he fell
while cleaning the murky water
that flooded the region
of cement factories and grey hills
two weeks without his employers
to even pay for the pain killers
or severance pay and no off time
his face had the expression of a struggling
red snapper

together
we would watch a gossip show
on the TV
while he ate spiced dry beef
boiled eggs and rice
the stories on the TV were mostly about
spouses, children, abandonment and
violence and
girls sleeping with their step dad
a psychologist and the skinny loud mouthed
blond moderator
who acted as the defender of society’s
completed the act

Joel could not stand up to open the door
a doorkeeper who couldn’t open the door
finally, after two weeks of silent pain
they gave him an assistant
we packed the last China bound container
bellied up with modems
to be refurbished and resold
to a billion internet hungry
Chinese beings






my job was done
two weeks past and I came back
he was not there anymore
but I found him
200 yards away under his shack
a crammed cardboard cluster of homes
he was in bed
lost 40 pounds and was
piped up, draining blood
from the chest
and a bag of ***** attached to the waist
someone was laying next to him
sleeping the afternoon
he smiled at me
missing two front teeth
skinny as a mummy
had three tumors
one trapped between the kidney
and the spine
one more in the stomach and the last one
next to the liver
he was to be taken to the hospital
with a danger of loosing
the kidney and his life
I gave him a kiss on the forehead
and left
It was the same pink sunny day
the same old trick of a life
but something was not right
it never usually is